the worship service looks full this morning though, admittedly, i haven't been in attendance since Christmas. families in their Sunday best sit on wooden pews in a patriarchal church that spent its tithings on a multi-million dollar gymnasium rather than the poor their savior told them to look out for.
men, women, and children awkwardly pretend to sing contemporary hymns beneath their breath, hoping no one will notice as they pick their noses, thinking absently of Easter dinner.
i write poems while the pastor prattles, his shallow words an empty drone filling my ears with white noise.
i feel myself drifting. i haven't been sleeping lately. the news has got me thinking each passing day might be our last on planet Earth and i'll be incensed if i waste one minute more than necessary in this cramped and ugly church, a sanctuary smelling faintly of old ladies, cheap perfume, and wilted flowers dying silently.
just one more week and i'll have been god-free for half a decade. for now, i grin and bear the tedium and mourn the tarnished legacy of the radical rabbi, a Nazarene who took on an Empire and died by his convictions.
i daresay, he'd be rolling in his grave if he could see these rich, white Presbyterians sullying his good name— provided, of course, he'd not so famously vacated the premises.